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Dwayne Johnson's Black Adam might be one of the more disappointing movies for the outgoing DCEU. With over a decade of production trouble, as well as a botched marketing campaign from The Rock, Black Adam came out to less than stellar reviews. Which in turn, was the final nail in the coffin for the DCEU franchise. But how exactly did Dwayne Johnson make Black Adam that final nail in the coffin?
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Heroes don't kill people
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Well, I do. Dwayne The Rock Johnson is arguably one of the biggest movie stars on the face of the planet
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However, even his charisma couldn't save the sagging and lethargic DC Comics movie universe
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In fact, the box office failure of Black Adam and The Rock's behind-the-scenes maneuvering
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has essentially directly contributed to the fall of the DCEU. And also, there will be some spoilers for Black Adam ahead
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I know you have a lot to catch up on. Move. My mom said you took out a bunch of Enzigang soldiers in the desert
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Because they wouldn't move out of my way. Created by C.C. Beck and Otto Bender and first appearing in the Marvel Family No. 1 from December of 1945
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Black Adam has become a staple of the Captain Marvel Universe. Originally created as a super-powered Egyptian antagonist for the Big Red Cheese
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the character has been evolved over the years to be a more morally gray, complex, and interesting opponent for the DC Universe as a whole
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Believe it or not, development on Black Adam as a feature film dates all the way back to the early 2000s
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when New Line Cinema was developing a Shazam movie that would have featured Teth Adam as the primary villain
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Peter Seagal, known for Tommy Boy and 50 First Dates, signed on to direct the film in April of 2006
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And The Rock was approached to play not Black Adam, but Captain Marvel himself
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While we're on the topic of Captain Marvel and his relationship to other superheroes
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you should probably check out our video on the strange reason there are two Captain Marvels
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Link in the description below. While The Rock never officially signed on to this version of the project
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rumors persisted that he would be involved. By 2009, the film had stalled out and run aground
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But it would only be a few short years later, in April of 2014, when The Rock would officially announce that he had signed onto the project in the role as the villain Black Adam But here where things start to go south In January of 2017 The Rock asked to meet Jeff Johns then one of the primary figures in the unfolding DCEU
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about concerns with the Shazam script. To put it simply, The Rock felt like he had risen
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too dramatically in popularity since his initial 2009 circling of the project to become a villain in a superhero film
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He wanted to be the star. He wanted Black Adam to be the star specifically
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but the movie was about Captain Marvel. so there was only one option. Remove Black Adam from the film, save him for a sequel down the line
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and give him his own feature film to really explore the character's motivations and complex
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history. And that's exactly what the DC execs decided to do. Not only is this a flawed idea
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on its surface in the context of making a good Shazam movie, but it's also a major misstep when
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you're trying to build a movie universe of interconnected characters. Black Adam is the
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villain for Captain Marvel. It's like trying to build a movie universe around the X-Men
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but saving Magneto for his own film. Your characters are never tested, never forced to
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develop and grow. A hero is only as good as his dark mirror reflection, and a film should tell
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the story of how your hero is tested beyond anything in their wildest dreams. They should
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be pushed to the brink and challenged so that their character arc over the course of the two
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hours feels like it's earned. I can have anything I've ever wanted. So now that the long-gestating Black Adam film has finally been released
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has Dwayne Johnson changed the hierarchy of power in the DCU? No, not particularly
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What he did was produce, creatively shepherd, and star in a pretty mediocre superhero movie
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that's more notable for its behind-the-scenes journey than for anything it actually put on screen
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The film itself centers on the fictional nation of Kandak, which has been invaded by a colonial force named Intergang that is strip mining the country of its natural resources and cultural heritage We follow a small group of well archaeologists as they attempt to find
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a mystical crown. They're racing against the clock to locate it before Intergang can get their hands
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on it when they're saved by an ancient warrior named Teth Adam. He's cool, brooding, and thanks
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to a backstory that has a surprise twist that you can see coming from 75 miles away, now also has the
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power of Shazam. Overall, paper-thin characterization, needlessly omnipresent slow-mo, and The Rock's
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obvious insistence that every line he says be either a one-liner or a trailer-worthy retort
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leave the film a completely forgettable slog that cost roughly $260 million before marketing
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Put me down! Put me down! You should really be more careful with your word choice next time
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The film does such a disservice to beloved characters like Dr. Fate
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Hawkman and Black Adam that it never even connects the fact that all of them share origins
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in ancient Egypt and Egyptian-influenced cultures. From the jump, the film's marketing leaned into
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its connections to the broader DCEU as a whole, literally starting with clips from Justice League
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In the lead-up to the film's release, The Rock went on a tear, all but confirming that Henry
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Cavill would cameo in the project as Superman. But even the return of Superman and a proper
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announcement from the man himself stating that he would return soon in Man of Steel 2 was not
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enough to score Black Adam a major win at the box office. And here's where things start to get even
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more dicey. The Hollywood Reporter debuted a story announcing that David Zaslav had selected two
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people to fill the Kevin Feige role at DC, James Gunn and Peter Safran. In the following weeks
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it became very clear that Gunn and Safran were going to be cleaning house, reshaping the DC
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comics movie universe and possibly even abandoning many of the successful remnants of the initial phases of the DCEU Gunn and Saffron have opted to not pursue Wonder Woman 3 despite Patty Jenkins and Geoff Johns turning in a fresh outline They opted to cancel a purported Batman Beyond
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movie, and they've opted to not bring Henry Cavill back for Man of Steel 2, despite his in-credits
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appearance in Black Adam. From the outside, it looks like Black Adam was the death knell of the
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DC Comics cinematic extended universe. It's pretty clear that from a corporate position, they're going
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to pivot to focusing on a marquee branded name characters like the Trinity and Flash. And that
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post-Flash, which is going to act like a crossover event and set a new status quo, they're going to
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start building out a new DCU with a cohesive plan. So what will ultimately happen with Flash
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Aquaman 2, and the other odds and ends that are holdovers from the DCEU
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Now everyone's kind of like doing their own thing and I'm the only one trying to keep it together. That's anyone's guess, but ultimately, Black Adam seems like the concrete evidence that David
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Zaslav and the other DC execs were looking for. Stop putting resources into characters that aren't universally known
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Focus on building out a cohesive universe first and foremost, and keep the levers of power inside the DC corporate hierarchy
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For the newly reborn DC movie universe to succeed, they need people who are willing to play ball and focus on growing the brand of the universe as a whole
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Look at how Robert Downey Jr. serviced the MCU. He appeared in cameo after cameo in order to bolster the burgeoning universe
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and at the end of the day, he was rewarded handsomely for his efforts
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It's fair to say that The Rock's ego played a large part of how the rollout for Black Adam
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was handled and was a substantial element in the project's failure to connect with audiences
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Going forward, the new DC Cinematic Universe needs to be rooted in a commitment to the
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characters first and foremost. That's how you get audiences to fall in love with them
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And that's how you build an overarching universe, a lesson the comics learned a long time ago
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